Just what is Kentucky Route Zero?

By Lola at Monday, January 07, 2013 7:57:59 AM

Picture an adventure filled with mystery and quirky humour,
painted on a cartoon canvas, throw in some bluegrass music, and then you get a
sense of Kentucky Route Zero’s heartbeat. It’s a point-and-click adventure game
inspired by the likes of Monkey Island and the recent The Walking Dead by
Telltale Games, which makes it right up my gamers alley.

Kentucky Route Zero is a magical realist adventure game
about a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks
who travel it. Gameplay is inspired by point-and-click adventure games, but
focused on characterization, atmosphere and storytelling rather than clever
puzzles or challenges of skill. The game will be released in five acts.

The game is developed by Cardboard Computer (Jake Elliott
and Tamas Kemenczy). The soundtrack features an original electronic score by
Ben Babbitt along with a suite of old hymns & bluegrass standards recorded
by The Bedquilt Ramblers.

Talking to The Verge, Elliot, explained the peculiar game
title (Kentucky), "Tamas and I both
love the culture of that area — bourbon and bluegrass, but also more
contemporary stuff like indie music from Louisville," he says. "Musically, there's actually a lot of
exchange between Louisville and Chicago."

On the focus group for the game, Elliot said, "We don't expect it to have a huge mass
appeal," says Elliott, "but we hope it will find a niche of people
who want to play it, think about it, and talk about it. We hope people will
stick with it for the full five acts and see where it goes."

Regarding the gameplay, Elliott said, “the team was more
interested in creating an interesting world filled with compelling characters.
And the gameplay reflects that. A large part of the game is spent just talking
to people.”

Game synopsis

Kentucky Route Zero
follows the story of a delivery man named Conway, who stumbles across a number
of different characters and scenarios while exploring the underground highway.
The game is described as a "magic realist adventure" and it looks
like Conway's journey will lead him into all manner of oddball situations —
there's everything from rescuing a robotic country singer from a wayward
security system to exploring a beached Civil War-era battleship that's now
overrun with cats.